23 liberately uttered in a theory of government. Can it be that thinking men are laying their strength together to roll back the wheels of time—to restore a system which had its birth in barbarism, and has been dying of civilization, ever since civilization began to bless the race ? Can it be that while they rejoice in the title of “ the chivalry,” which belongs to the condition of lordship and serfdom, they are really willing to accept the character which that title originally and truly denoted ? Would they be as knights and barons of the middle ages, living in their plantation castles, with crowds of banded retainers to execute their will, with a code of principles in which mere arbitrary power was first and last and midst—a code which exalted the sentimental graces and ignored the solid virtues of life, which frowned upon an insult but warranted an injustice, which bade a man be watchful for his honor, though bereft of honesty, which taught him to be gallant, and permitted him to be unchaste, to be polished in manner and rotten in conscience, generous yet grasping, hospitable, yet cruel at the pleasure of his passions, courtly in the saloon and savage in the court-yard ? Is this the character that they would emulate and re-produce in this noon light of civilization and the Gospel ? It would be difficult to credit it but for the tierce pertinacity with which they claim it, and their practical illustration of the character in the uncon
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